Design

Lecture by Dave Bianchi at GDC 2014. One designer, 90+ vehicles, and only 6 months to go: that was the scenario David Bianchi, Designer at Volition, had coming onto Saints Row: The Third. This talk is about taking on an overabundance of especially difficult system design work and turning…

Article by James Hague for Gamasutra. The design director of Volition/THQ’s expansive open world action title Red Faction: Guerrilla talks about the transition from being scared of player freedom to truly embracing it, including several case studies of specific missions in the game and they evolved to support meaningful…

Lecture by David Bowring at GDC 2010. Engaging cooperative play in an open world is a growing challenge designers have to face. More games are allowing players to join up with friends to enjoy sandbox mayhem as well as play through activities and story missions. In this lecture, a member…

Lecture by Scott Phillips at GDC 2009. Examine the history of populating open worlds and a detailed description and post-mortem of the LIFE system developed by Volition for SAINTS ROW 2. Attendees will learn about the inspiration, organization, methodology, successes and failures of the LIFE system used to add…

Lecture by Jason Hayes and Kenny Thompson at GDC 2007. As games continue to evolve so does gameplay. With the incredible success of open world sandbox games, Saints Row is one of many that will surely follow. Within this lecture we walk through the creation process of Saints Row’s…